Ok, there has been another delay. Anyway here is where I have gotten. I bought all my ingredients for one whole recipe of ice cream and some of the ingredients for another (pistashio, raspberry - will replace cherry) . I probably have much of the ingredients for the third (chocolate)

I decided to start with the raspberry first, so if it doesn't turn out the way I want, It's easier to get more raspberries. As you can see the pistashios were a bit of work.

Now what's the slow up. Well we're remodling the kitchen right now. I'll be able to work on three things at once, once the new counters are in.

Ok, part one of three is done, well it’s in the freezer. I really don’t know much about ice cream making. I first created the recipe based on other recipes I had looked at, but with my signature on them, then put them together. There will probably be one ingredient that most of you will not know, in the recipe – stevia – fell free to ask about it, if you wish.

Since I don’t really know about ice cream making, I wasn’t sure if the ice cream came out properly from the hand cranked machine. Maybe some of you could let me know what the ice cream should look like when it comes out of the machine. Mine came out, after 20 minutes, looking still a bit soft. It was not liquidy but it was soft.

I kept it in the machine for the twenty minutes they asked for. Do you think it would have been good to keep it a bit longer? I decided to use three eggs, instead of just two, to have more of the French style ice cream.

I beat the eggs and milk together in a saucepan and added the stevia – sweetener – and cooked on low heat for around 15 minutes or so; “until it smoothly coats the spoon” according to the instruction booklet that came with the machine. Then I cooled for two or three hours and put in the fridge overnight. The next step was to take the raspberries out of the freezer and thaw them. I thawed them on the counter for a few hours, then add them to the rest of the ingredients, then, into the ice cream maker.

I feel I must add that I put the liquid ingredients into my food processor, with the whipping attachment and processed it on 6 (medium low) for one or two minutes. I really didn’t count the time as it was done more by eye. I just wanted to pump a little are into the ingredients, without really fluffing them up too much.

The Raspberry would have been a total disaster, if I hadn't learned so much about ice cream making. Some here on DC and some elsewhere.

One site I visited had an opinion about the very machine I own which is the “Donvier” ice cream maker. He explained to me most of the problems I was having with my machine, and gave some advice on how to correct for it He said this:

“Donvier. A hand cranked, freezer bucket variety. The plastic is a bit cheap (i.e., it's easy to break if you apply too much force). The two tricks to using this machine are

put the rubber ring on the bucket before you put it in the freezer

in the begining, crank every minute, and then easy off to 2 or 3 minutes later. This avoids the problem of having the mix freeze too much in the beginning when the bucket is colder, and having to apply so much force to turn the crank that you risk breaking the plastic.”

Please don’t kick me off ( ) of the frozen desert section yet, as it will seem that the subject has changed. I guarantee you it has not, although it might seem to have. So while I was embarked on my mission of spumoni fame, I was also on a quest to find a new bread machine. One of my friends told me, while we were working on my new kitchen cabinets – one of them is on wheels - that he had seen a used bread machine at a nearly new shop called « Le Grenier du ma Grand Méré » which means, my grandmothers attic. I went over, about a week later, to see if it was still there. Alas it was. I immediately bargained for it, and bought it for 40 bucks cash! Good deal? Not a good deal! Satya and I brought it to our friends house – very close friends that we have known for a while – and asked if they would like me to make a bread at there house. They said yes. I begged all the ingredients, flour, salt, sugar, milk, water, yeast, etc. and stuffed it all in the machine, in the order listed, of course. Twenty minutes or so later it started to whirl. My friends, who were originally from Bulgaria and still made there bread the same way there grandmothers in Bulgaria made bread, were quite taken by this new contraption and wanted to take a peek at it, while in action. So we all glanced at each other with bemused expressions and without a word all bounded for the bread machine, at once.

I didn't believe it and yet I did, It wasn’t working. At first I thought the flour was stuck or something but no, that wasn't it, it wasn’t working. We looked at it for a while, and figured out that the shaft that went to the kneading paddle had somehow become detached. Well I had asked for a receipt form the woman who had sold it to me in the first place and she checked to make sure that I had actually asked for a receipt, “you want a receipt” was her mantra. Not the first time she had asked it like that I am sure. It was if she was saying, “why do you need a receipt”. I had little doubt that I was doing the right thing, as my intuition is usually pretty good, so I had no problem taking it back, when it failed.

Back at home a few days later, still looking for a better bread machine, I went to the… web. I searched and searched for the brand and model I was looking for, but came up blank. Then all of a sudden I came across the “Cuisinart CBK-200 Breadmaker”, a great looking little machine, not pretty, but functional; very functional looking. While I was on there site, I decided to go over and take a look at there Ice Cream Makers since I’d been having so much frustration with mine. I didn’t like the look of it, another cylinder type ice cream maker. However, somehow, and I don’t know how, I ended up on the page that I posted on the last posting I made on this thread. I don’t know if any of you took the time to check that page out, but at the bottom of the page was a comment on the “White Mountain Ice Cream Maker” and the fact that it had been bought out by “Rival”. Lord forbid, the link to the website, even a telephone number.

I went over to the website to look around. I couldn't seem to find the price of the machine I was looking at, on the web page, so I used the phone number to call customer service. Oh boy! This was either a very good move or a very bad move. While I was on the phone, just trying to find out the price, the sales lady, very sweet and kind, gave me a 30% buy now offer!!! 30%! How could I say no? Of course I told her that I should speak to my wife before I buy it or she (my wife) would own my soul. She told me, in a very calm voice, that “she already owns your soul.” I agreed with a sigh. But no way would she extend the offer… I couldn’t believe myself, when I said, albeit with a long hesitation, I guess you’ll need my credit card number...

I should have a new “White Mountain” in about three or four weeks. That’s the good news. The bad news is, unless my wife is looking over my shoulder, right now, she still doesn’t know I’ve bought it. My game plan is to get the machine, make spumoni, then tell her I bought it, after she has had her fill…